Company delves into dark side of 'Dream'

Written sometime between 1590 and 1596, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is one of William Shakespeare’s most popular and produced plays.

On its surface, it’s a romantic comedy whose appeal comes from its mix of verbal and physical comedy, magic, and, of course, love fulfilled in its conclusion.

But Kevin Asselin chose it as this year’s Young Company production for the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival for reasons counter to all those attributes: He wants to investigate its “darker themes.”

“As Lysander says, ‘The course of true love never did run smooth,’ ” he says, “and I think that sets up the underlying theme for all these young lovers and for Oberon.”

The plot surrounds the arranged marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons, but most of the action takes place in a nearby forest, which also makes it a natural selection for The Young Company’s performances in area parks.

In the forest, the king and queen of the Fairies, Oberon and Titania, are engaged in an argument that, as Asselin says, causes “the entire mortal world (to be) turned upside down.”

Titania refuses to give Oberon her Indian changeling for his use as a knight, so Oberon orders his mischievous court jester, Puck, to apply a love potion to Titania so that she will fall in love with an animal in the forest as revenge for her obstinacy.

“There is a darker quality to their existence,” Asselin says about the Fairies. “It also emphasizes that Titania, Oberon, Puck and all these fairies have been together for thousands of years. There’s nothing clean about their costumes. It’s steampunk, but distressed.”

Among the mortals, Hermia is in love with Lysander but is ordered by her father to marry Demetrius or face death, until Theseus offers her the option of becoming a nun in service to the goddess Diana.

“Here (Hippolyta) is, a prize that is not quite comfortable in this world, and the first thing she hears is Egeus tell Hermia that she must marry Demetrius or she dies,” Asselin says. “I think we can’t look at that too lightly. It sets up the conflict and the struggle these characters are faced with.”

Puck also misapplies the love potion to Demetrius, who wakes from it and falls in love with Helena, whom he had previously insulted.

“There’s all these references to Cupid, that love is blind and referencing again that Demetrius on first sight falls in love with Hermia,” Asselin says. “Then all the insults he throws at Helena in the forest are all undone when he realizes she is the one he needs. The only true love you see at the beginning is between Lysander and Hermia.”

Also mixed up in all of this is an acting troupe, The Mechanicals, who stage a play, “The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe,” that the Athenian audience ridicules.

“Even the play within the play, like ‘Love’s Labours Lost,’ those poor Mechanicals are made fun of,” Asselin says. “They have this opportunity to put on a great show. … It’s an opportunity for us to sit back and see the Athenian world is really wrong in how they treat these Mechanicals as they perform something they’re proud of.”

For this production, Asselin has cast The Mechanicals in the mold of the New Orleans band Debauche — a Russian Mafia Band and the Australian band VulgarGrad, both of which put a punk spin on traditional Russian thieves songs.

“I felt the Mechanicals’ personalities would really shine if given a Russian persona,” he says. “I liked the idea of showing that the Mechanicals are not part of Athens. They speak in prose and Shakespeare tells us they’re more common. I wanted to make them more alien.”

Since The Young Company added an annual production in 2006, the program has grown technically and in its ambitions, with Asselin directing each of its productions.

For the second year in a row, for example, The Young Company has both a costume designer and scenic designer, Lucy Lavely and Matthew McCarren, respectively.

Also, music played an important role in 2010’s “The Taming of the Shrew” and 2011’s “As You Like It” productions, and this year, Chicago-based composer Ethan Deppe is serving as the music director.

“These are other elements we’ve wanted to add in little by little,” Asselin says. “The idea is to give the students a stronger sense of ownership and give them much more of a professional environment to play within. With any professional environment, you have a team of artists working together.”

That includes his approach to directing, which demands the students take risks and make suggestions rather than simply take movement and speech cues from him.

“For these young actors, it’s scary for them to be up against these seasoned professionals, and they rely on their technique and their schooling and they forget to take risks,” he says. “I’m really, really working on creating an environment that’s a safe place so that they aren’t afraid to fail. You can fail and learn a considerable amount from it.”

The troupe consists of about 20 students who audition each year to take classes, produce their own play, and be cast and crew members for the main stage production, which is “Hamlet” this year.

This year’s troupe includes students from Notre Dame; Saint Mary’s College; Oklahoma City University, where Asselin teaches; and Northwestern University, where “Hamlet” director David H. Bell teaches.

In 2006, The Young Company produced “The Brothers Menaechmus,” the third-century Roman source for that year’s main stage production, “The Comedy of Errors.” Similarly, it produced Shakespeare’s source for “Twelfth Night,” the Intronati di Siena’s “The Deceived” in 2009 and Thomas Middleton’s related “The Witch” in conjunction with the 2008 main stage production of “Macbeth.” For 2007, when “Love’s Labours Lost” was the main stage production, it produced Molière’s “The Learned Ladies,” a comedy of manners from 1672.

With 2010’s production of “The Taming of the Shrew,” however, The Young Company made a deliberate switch to Shakespeare’s works.

“In terms of the students in the program, we felt it was more advantageous to them if they had Shakespeare’s language,” Asselin says. “It showed (in 2011) when they showed up for the first reading of the main stage and how comfortable they were. … Oftentimes, kids at this level go off and do summer stock, which often involves musical theater or cruise ships, but I think this really allows them to delve into good literature.”

Onstage

The Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival’s Young Company presents William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the following locations:

Lincoln Township Public Library, Stevensville; 7 p.m. today

Dewey Cannon Park, Three Oaks; 6:30 p.m. Saturday

Battell Park, Mishawaka; 7 p.m. July 22

Centennial Park, Plymouth; 7 p.m. July 27

Centennial Park, Munster; 6:30 p.m. (CDT) July 28

Potawatomi Park Pavilion, South Bend; 7 p.m. Aug. 4

Wellfield Botanic Garden, Elkhart; 7 p.m. Aug. 5

Main Building Quad, University of Notre Dame; 7 p.m. Aug. 20

Admission is free for all performances. For more information, visit shakespeare.nd.edu.